Then the five men that went to spy out the country of Laish said to their kinsmen, “Do you know that in these houses there are an ephod, household idols, a carved image and a molten image? Now therefore, consider what you have to do.”
Gideon made it into an ephod, and put it in his town Ophrah. But all Israel prostituted themselves after it there, and it became a snare to Gideon and his household.
“You have taken away my gods which I made,” he said, “and the priest, and walked away! What do I have left? And how then do you say to me, ‘What’s the matter with you?’”
You are to gird Aaron and his sons with sashes, tie headwear on them, and they shall hold the priesthood by a perpetual statute. In this way you are to consecrate Aaron and his sons.
“Make a breastplate of judgment, the work of a skillful craftsman. You are to make it like the design of the ephod—of gold, blue, purple, scarlet and finely twisted linen.
For Israel has forgotten his Maker and built temples, while Judah has multiplied fortified cities. So I will send fire upon its cities that will consume their citadels.”
These are the garments that they are to make: a breastplate, an ephod, a robe, a tunic of checkered work, a turban and a sash. They are to make holy garments for your brother Aaron and his sons, so that he may minister to Me as a kohen.
So when he returned the silver to his mother, his mother took 200 pieces of silver and gave them to the silversmith who made it into a graven image and a molten image; and they were kept in the house of Micah.
The children of Dan set up for themselves the carved image. Jonathan son of Gershom son of Manasseh, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the exile from the land.
A carpenter stretches out a line; he marks it with a pencil; he shapes it with planes; he marks it with a compass; he shapes it like the figure of a man —like the beauty of a man— so that it may sit in a shrine.
Then Jeroboam instituted a festival in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, imitating the Festival that is in Judah. He went up to the altar that he built in Bethel, to sacrifice to the calves that he had made. He installed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he made.
For the king of Babylon stands at the fork in the road, at the start of the two roads, to seek divination. He shakes the arrows, consults the idols, he looks in the liver.